Anyone know when Lan Chile joins OneWorld - I want to book a RTW using them to Easter Island.

The rumour has it that the date for Lan Chile and Aer Lingus joining 1W is June 1.

Going to Easter Island on your RTW trip?? Isn't that a bit of a dead end? I've heard plenty of bad reports about Lan Chile from travel agents who I know pretty well (they've said that even Olympic is better than Lan Chile) and flights going to Easter Island are also known as "llama hoppers" which also refers to pax and service on board. Hope you like travelling in "no frills - suck it up" class.

Lan Chile's flights to Easter Island continue on to Tahiti. You might be able to link up with Qantas on a RTW from there.

As to service, two friends of mine at separate times flew from Santiago to Easter Island last year. Both said the service was minimal and the flights very expensive (about $900 RT from Santiago). Nothing like lack of competition!

I'm only planning on going overnight and then back tracking to SCL.

I'm buying a FC RTW so I'll probably just sleep anyway.

Thanks for the information.

According to my LanPass newsletter received yesterday, LA will join oneworld effective 01 June 2000.

Regarding flights to Easter Island, they are in fact pricey. As someone posted here, the lack of competition is one reason, but I'm guessing that LA is more interested in taking stuff (i.e., cargo) to Rapa Nui than people. The flights do in fact continue to Papeete (I believe as a code share with QF).

Regarding Lan's service, I think they are up to par with most international carriers. They are very consistent, and you pretty much know what you're going to get, in terms of service. (I have heard of service horror stories, but most of them seem to be more than 2-3 years ago). FWIW, Lan has stated their intention to become one of the "world's top 10 airlines.

Finally, I noticed that oneworld offers multi-airline awards, i.e., one leg of the trip on airline A, the next on B,... Is this new? I hadn't heard of it previously (I don't follow oneworld closely). Being a Star Alliance guy, I wish they would offer this option.

Markie: If you'd like, let me know when you'll be in SCL. We can do a mini-FT meeting...

[This message has been edited by Jim_B (edited 05-23-2000).]

Yep, here's the release:

Aer Lingus and LanChile begin to offer the full range of oneworld(TM) customer services and benefits on Thursday, June 1.

They take the full membership of oneworld up to eight -- almost doubling its original line-up in the little more than a year since its launch in February 1999. This represents one of the most rapid growth rates among global airline alliances.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/000531/tx_oneworl.html

Actually I didn't find the SCL-IPC service that bad, though it was packed on the return flight (food kinda sucked, though). It is well worth the trip though. My trip report:
http://www.interlog.com/~leed/

Dave